Tag Archives: solitude

Daily Riches: Listen To Your Life (Joan Chittister)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, contemplative virtues, Hurry Sickness, Loving Listening, Self-care, Silence, Solitude, Spiritual Disciplines, Stillness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Wholeness and Brokenness

“In the midst of all this indistinguishable cacophony of life, the bell tower of every Benedictine monastery rings ‘listen.’ Listen with the heart of Christ. Listen with the lover’s ear. Listen for the voice of God. Listen in your own heart for the sound of truth, the kind that comes when a piece of quality crystal is struck by a metal rod.” Joan Chittister

“The Rule [of Saint Benedict] teaches us to listen to the circumstances of our own lives. We have to begin to face what our own life patterns might be saying to us. When we are afraid, what message lurks under the fear: a horror of failure, a rejection of weakness, panic at the thought of public embarrassment, a sense of valuelessness that comes with loss of approval? When we find ourselves in the same struggles over and over again, what does that pattern say? That I always begin a thing with great enthusiasm only to abandon it before it is finished? That I am always reluctant to change, no matter how good the changes might be for me? That I keep imposing unsatisfactory relationships with people from my past on every new person I meet? That down deep I have never given myself to anything except myself? Not to my friends. Not to my work. Not to my vocation. Until I learn to listen – to the Scriptures, to those around me, to my own underlying life messages, to the wisdom of those who have already maneuvered successfully around the dangers of a life that is unmotivated and unmeaningful – I will really have nothing whatever to say about life myself. To live without listening is not to live at all; it is simply to drift in my own backwater.” Joan Chittister

“Listen as Wisdom calls out! 
Hear as understanding raises her voice! …
Listen to me! For I have important things to tell you.”
Proverbs 8:1,6

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you a listening person? Are you quiet enough? Moving at a slow enough pace?
  • Do you think of being a good listener as essential to living the life of faith? …to loving well?
  • What habits prevent you from listening well? Are you doing anything about them?

Abba, help me to hear the important things in my life I would otherwise miss.

For More: Wisdom Distilled From the Daily by Joan Chittister

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. Thanks!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Gradually Being Freed From Habitual Hardness of Heart (Thomas Merton)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Awareness, Contemplative Prayer, contemplative virtues, Humility, Meditation, Sabbath Rhythms, Silence, Solitude, Spiritual Disciplines

“Even the capacity to recognize our condition before God is itself a grace. We cannot always attain it at will. To learn mediation does not, therefore, mean learning an artificial technique for infallibly producing ‘compunction’ and the ‘sense of our nothingness’ when ever we please. On the contrary, this would be the result of violence and would be inauthentic. Mediation implies the capacity to receive this grace whenever God wishes to grant it to us, and therefore a permanent disposition to humility, attention to reality, receptivity, pliability. To learn to meditate then means to gradually get free from habitual hardness of heart, torpor and grossness of mind, due to arrogance and non-acceptance of simple reality, or resistance to the concrete demands of God’s will.” Thomas Merton

“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do
flows from it.”
Proverbs 4:23

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • In his grace, has God allowed you to “recognize your condition before God?” What has that meant for you?
  • Merton says we must have a “permanent disposition to humility, attention to reality, receptivity [and] pliability” to develop the “capacity to receive God’s grace when he wishes to grant it to us.” Can you pray slowly through this list, asking God to show you any areas in your life that need to change?
  • Are you developing practices like Sabbath, solitude and silence, or like meditation and wordless prayer so that God has more and more unhindered access to your heart? …so that your “capacity” to receive from him is increasing?
  • Are you taking risks with your heart, perhaps resisting “the concrete demands of God’s will” even though you know better?

Abba, by your grace, soften my heart to you, so that I may receive fuller, even more needed grace.

For More: Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Thinking, Feeling, Behaving, Becoming

Posted on by under fixed-time prayers, Sabbath Rhythms, Silence, Solitude, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, The Call to Change

In the Judeo-Christian tradition both heart (Proverbs 4:23) and mind (Romans 12:2) play a critical place in the spiritual life, but true religion can be defined (James 1:27) and measured (Mt. 25:31ff.) without regard to these things, because the spiritual life is more than just correct thinking (doctrine, theology) and proper feeling (affections, passions). True religion involves behavior (lifestyle, practices). Both heart and mind are penultimate to behavior. Life-change is always the ultimate end in view, always the goal. We know from James, that faith without works is dead (James 2:20), and from Paul that faith leads to obedience (Romans 1:5). The Bible emphasizes these works and this obedience in its ubiquitous calls for love, compassion, understanding and generosity towards others – and in giving God the affection and honor that he deserves. Unfortunately, in the churches, this call to character or Christian lifestyle is often where the story ends. We’re reminded, motivated, inspired, informed and challenged – but often left to ourselves to figure out how to make it work. Yes, be more patient, loving, compassionate. Yes, be a person of prayer, joy, grace, peace. But how? The ancient answer is new again – spiritual disciplines. By them we make space for God to enter our equation. We position ourselves to receive from God and to hear from God. By practicing spiritual disciplines we train ourselves* to be able to do by the grace of God, what we cannot consistently do now: “the right thing in the right way at the right time for the right reason.” The “riches” that I share highlight the value of proven spiritual disciplines and repeatedly remind of them – since we often know, but also forget, what is most important. And since the learning-curve of the Christian life is long (a life-time), we need to return repeatedly to these core practices – practices that you might not often hear emphasized in church (the need to slow down, the need for silence and solitude), or things that aren’t typical in your faith tradition, and not mentioned for that reason (contemplative prayer, fixed-time prayer, keeping of a sabbath). We look to God to change us, but merely looking is not enough. Nor is it enough to learn more, or try harder. Historic spiritual disciplines transcend eras of Christian history, continents, cultures and denominations. Christians of influence in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions all testify to their value. As you prayerfully interact with this blog, I hope you will find value in them as well, and that starting with me, we’ll all end up looking more like Jesus.

* “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” 1 Timothy 4:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you settled for merely more information or inspiration?
  • What you’re doing to be more like Jesus – is it working?
  • Are you actually training yourself “to do the right thing … for the right reason?
Abba, keep me moving along the journey of transformation.
.
For More: The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg
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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less (with today being a rare exception). I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Restlessness and Grace (A. B. Simpson)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Contemplative Prayer, Silence, Stillness

“… a friend placed in my hand a book called True Peace. It was an old mediaeval message, and it had but one thought – that God was waiting in the depths of my being to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear His voice. I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ear, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. …It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them and to answer some of them; but God said, “Be still and know that I am God.” Then came the concert of thoughts for tomorrow, and its duties and cares; but He said, “Be still.” And as I listened … and shut my ear to every sound, I found after a while that when the other noises ceased … there was a still small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power and comfort. …it became to me the voice of prayer, the voice of wisdom, the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard; but that ‘still small voice’ of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God’s prayer in my secret soul, was God’s answer to all my questions, was God’s life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer and all blessing: for it was the living GOD Himself as my life, my all. It is thus that our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord and we go forth to life’s conflicts and duties like a flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But as dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul.” A. B. Simpson

“Be still, and know that I am God….” Psalm 46:10

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you think of “being still” as easy? optional?
  • Are you a “restless soul?”
  • Is God waiting for you to “get still enough to hear his voice?”

Abba, help.

For More: Streams in the Desert by Charles Cowman

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Alone with God (E. M. Bounds, Simone Weil, Vincent de Paul, and Brennan Manning) *

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Busyness, devotions, Hurry Sickness, Prayer, Silence, Solitude, Waiting on God

“God’s acquaintance is not made hurriedly. He does not bestow His gifts on the casual or hasty comer and goer. To be much alone with God is the secret of knowing Him and of influence with Him.” E. M. Bounds

“He who hurries, delays the things of God.” Vincent de Paul

“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” Simone Weil

[comparing contemplative prayer and water poured into a basin] “It takes time for the water to settle. Coming to interior stillness requires waiting. …In solitary silence we listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls us the beloved. God speaks to the deepest strata of our souls, into our self-hatred and shame, our narcissism, and takes us through the night into the daylight of His truth….” Brennan Manning

“Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
for my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress where I will not be shaken.”
Psalm 62:5,6

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Could hurry in your life be working against or “delaying the things of God?” In his love for you, could God have you in a holding pattern so that you learn “the foundation of the spiritual life?”
  • If “interior stillness requires waiting”, then time alone with God must be unhurried. In your time with God, are you taking enough time for the “water to settle?”
  • When you “wait quietly before God”, do you have a sense of confident “expectation?” If not, why not, when this is clearly what, in God’s love, he wants for you?
  • When we wait, we make room for God to be God – in our lives, our situation, in the lives of others. Are you leaving room for God to be God in your life?

Abba, I don’t want to hurry through my days, or in time spent with you. Help me to wait well before you, and then in my days – for answers to prayer, for solutions, for others to change – and for change in me.

__________

For More: Power Through Prayer by E. M. Bounds

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

 

 

Daily Riches Book Notes: Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian McLaren

Posted on by under contemplative virtues, Daily Office, Loving Union with God, Loving Well, Prayer, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, The Call to Change

As the subtitle says, this book calls us to remember and put into practice forgotten ways of the ancient church – ways or practices we need to embrace again if we are to “find our way.” The book introduces an impressive new series The Ancient Practices Series, edited by Phillis Tickle, where many of the traditional spiritual disciplines will be covered, one per book. The plan for succeeding volumes is for books devoted to prayer, the sabbath, fasting, the eucharist, the journey, the liturgical year, and tithing. Besides touching on these, in this first book McLaren includes insights on suffering, stillness, secrecy, simplicity, slowness, simplicity, fixed-time prayer, hospitality, memorization and others. I really liked his discussion of St. Francis.

I found the book to be a rare treasure – heart-stiriring, and hope-giving – always challenging the reader to to move from the head to the heart. A short and easy read, the book deserves to be lingered over and savored. McLaren has a beautiful ability to take the seemingly stuffy, theoretical, tedious or unfamiliar, and make it interesting, easily accessible, and patently relevant. I found the wideness of vision in the book (see chapter 20) surprising, even stunning, and worthy of the living God. The final chapter alone is worth the price of the book, and the Notes at the end make for a valuable treasure trove of other important, related resources.

I’m late discovering McLaren, but I’ll definitely be digging into his other books. If you’re also not familiar, be sure to take a look at this book. I don’t think you’ll come away unchanged.

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Book Notes are a new addition to my blog Daily Riches. Notes will be posted sporadically, and only to subscribers to the blog – just to keep it simple for me. (If you’re connecting to Daily Riches through Twitter or Facebook, you will have to subscribe to richerbyfar.com to receive Book Notes.) As always, thanks for reading – and please, share your thoughts and opinions on these books! Thanks much – and thanks for joining me on what reader has called “this wobbly journey.” –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Solitude and the Chattering Monkeys (Henri Nouwen, Pope Francis and David K. Flowers) *

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken—nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive—or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation.  … The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone.” Henri Nouwen

“In the history of salvation,
neither in the clamour nor in the blatant,
but the Shadows and the Silence
are the places in which God chose
to reveal himself to humankind.”
Pope Francis

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you avoid solitude? If so, why?
  • Are you expecting to find God, or be found by him in crowd’s “clamour?”
  •  Are you willing to “persevere” in your solitude until the “monkeys in the banana tree” give up and leave you alone?

“The world is full of people wanting to solve [its] problems. But the world would profit much more if people would first confront their own anxieties and the things that cause them 1) to have to fill every silence with meaningless chatter, 2) to stay constantly busy, and 3) to do anything to avoid being still.” David K. Flowers

Abba, deliver me from these tactics.

__________

For More: The Essential Henri Nouwen

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Being the Beloved of God (Henri Nouwen) *

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Loving Listening, Prayer, Silence, Simplicity, Solitude

“Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, ‘Prove that you are a good person.’ Another voice says, ‘You’d better be ashamed of yourself.’ There also is a voice that says, ‘Nobody really cares about you,’ and one that says, ‘Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.’ But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, ‘You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.’ That’s the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. That’s what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us ‘my Beloved.'”  Henri Nouwen

“The silence of solitude is nothing but dead silence when it does not make us alert for a new voice sounding from beyond all human chatter.” Nouwen

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is Christ’s love,
and to know by experience this love that surpasses knowledge —
that you may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness from God.”
Ephesians 3:17b-19 (my trans.)

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • I’ve heard all these other insistent, noisy voices, with their deceiving and devastating counsel. Have you?
  • Just how “wide and long and high and deep is Christ’s love” for you? Do you actually “know by experience” about God’s love for you, or is this something you merely believe or confess?
  • Are you spending sufficient time in the silence of solitude to hear for yourself that you are God’s “beloved?” If not, what specifically can you do about that?

Abba, may I be rooted and grounded in Christ’s unfailing love for me, comprehending that which surpasses knowledge as I experience it in the deepest part of who I am. Help me to protect silent spaces where I can listen to your voice.

__________

For More: The Still, Small Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen

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Thomas Merton expresses my heart for Daily Riches: “If I dare, in these few words, to ask you some direct and personal questions, it is because I address them as much to myself as to you. It is because I am still able to hope that a civil exchange of ideas can take place between two persons — that we have not yet reached the stage where we are all hermetically sealed, each one in the collective arrogance and despair of his own herd.” I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: Solitude and the Chattering Monkeys (Henri Nouwen and Pope Francis)

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken—nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive—or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation.  … The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone.” Henri Nouwen

“In the history of salvation,
neither in the clamour nor in the blatant,
but the Shadows and the Silence
are the places in which God chose
to reveal himself to humankind.”
Pope Francis

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you avoid solitude? If so, why?
  • Are you expecting to find God, or be found by him in crowd’s “clamour?”
  •  Are you willing to “persevere” in your solitude until the “monkeys in the banana tree” give up and leave you alone?

“The world is full of people wanting to solve [its] problems. But the world would profit much more if people would first confront their own anxieties and the things that cause them 1) to have to fill every silence with meaningless chatter, 2) to stay constantly busy, and 3) to do anything to avoid being still.” David K. Flowers

Abba, deliver me from these tactics.

__________

For More: The Essential Henri Nouwen

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Being the Beloved (Henri Nouwen)

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Prayer, Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, ‘Prove that you are a good person.’ Another voice says, ‘You’d better be ashamed of yourself.’ There also is a voice that says, ‘Nobody really cares about you,’ and one that says, ‘Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.’ But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, ‘You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.’ That’s the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. That’s what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us ‘my Beloved.'”  Henri Nouwen

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is Christ’s love,
and to know by experience this love that surpasses knowledge —
that you may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness from God.”
Ephesians 3:17b-19 (my trans.)

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • I’ve heard all these other insistent, noisy voices, with their deceiving and devastating counsel. Have you?
  • Just how “wide and long and high and deep is Christ’s love” for you? Is this something you “experience” or something intellectual or doctrinal?
  • Is the amount of time you spend, just listening in the silence of solitude, enough for you to really hear that you are God’s “beloved?” If not, what can you do to change that?

Abba, may I be rooted and grounded in Christ’s unfailing love for me, comprehending that which surpasses knowledge as I experience it in the deepest part of who I am. Help me to protect silent spaces where I can listen to your voice.

__________

For More: The Still, Small Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: “Change Yourself First” (David K. Flowers)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, contemplative virtues, Hurry Sickness, Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“You don’t need to fix your friends or family. You don’t need to solve all the problems that confront you. If you can simply learn to not be controlled by fear — your own or that of others — you will be a non-anxious presence in the lives of others, and there is nothing they need more. So how do you do this? By confronting your own anxieties and fears head-on. An anxious person cannot be a non-anxious presence, obviously. The world is full of people wanting to solve all the problems of the world. But the world would profit much more if people would first confront their own anxieties and the things that cause them 1) to have to fill every silence with meaningless chatter, 2) to stay constantly busy, and 3) to do anything to avoid being still.”  David K. Flowers

“First get rid of the log in your own eye;
then you will see well enough
to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”
Jesus in Matthew 7:5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • It’s much easier to focus on “fixing” another person (a spouse, a child, a friend) than it is to look within. In many instances, Jesus wants us to leave the other person to him. Is there someone in your life right now that you’re trying to “fix?”
  • Flowers suggests we can nevertheless powerfully help others by bringing a “non-anxious presence” into our relationships with them. Do you regularly have a non-anxious presence?
  • Can you spend time before God in silence and stillness? Are you too busy to be without anxiety? What can you do differently to have more of a “non-anxious presence?”

Abba, I know I need to learn more about slowing down, sitting still, being quiet and being alone with you. I want to learn to rest in your love – and offer it to others. Please teach me.

__________

For More: Living Truthfully: Discovering the Freedom that Comes From Finding, Facing, and Following the Truth … by David K. Flowers

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to provide you with something of uncommon value each day in about 300 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Solitude (Richard Baxter and Jurgen Moltmann)

Posted on by under Prayer, Solitude

“We seldom read of God’s appearing

by Himself or His angels
or to any of His prophets or saints in a throng
but frequently when they are alone.”
Richard Baxter

“… what are virtues for the mystic are torment and sickness for the modern man or woman: estrangement, loneliness, silence, solitude, inner emptiness, deprivation, poverty, not-knowing, and so forth …. What the monks sought for in order to find God, modern men and women fly from as if it were the devil.” Jurgen Moltmann

“…Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida,
while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them,
he went up on a mountainside to pray.” Mark 6:45,46
“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.
When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them,
whom he also designated apostles:”  Luke 6:12
“About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him
and went up onto a mountain to pray.”  Luke 9:28

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Why do you think God most often makes himself known to someone who is alone?
  • Are you regularly alone before God, or would that represent “torment and sickness” for you?
  • What plan can you make to regularly escape the “throng” as Jesus did, and give God more of your undivided attention?

Abba, help me to learn to leave the crowd behind and make myself available to you – not focusing on my problems or needs, but simply giving you my affection and undivided attention.

__________

For More: Experiences of God by Jurgen Moltmann

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to provide you with something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)